


Become Who You Were Meant to Be

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Fingering, Dubious Consent, F/M, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Politics, Possessive Sex, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:35:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Kylo is a fighter both by training and by preference. Tactics, not strategy. Action, not discussion. Every instinct in him wants to solve his problems by grabbing his sword and shedding some blood. But those easy days are behind him now. He has a galaxy to run.It would be easier if only he could stop thinking abouther.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 34
Kudos: 109
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	Become Who You Were Meant to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/gifts).



Parnadee says he looks dignified without the mask.

He’s on his way to yet another of what his aides call hourly briefings, except they seem to be scheduled roughly every five minutes and Kylo hasn’t had a moment to himself since he rolled out of bed. Griss wanted him to sign off the new apportionments while he drank his morning caf. Trach won’t stop calling him with relayed updates from Hux and Pryde. He needs to take a piss break before the next meeting, but he’s half afraid Parnadee might follow him into the ‘fresher reciting stats about her ground force engagements or feedback on his sartorial choices.

‘You thought the mask lessened my dignity?’ he snaps at her.

‘No, sir. The mask was very warlike, but your bare face makes you look like a king. You have a regal nose, you know.’

That’s one word for it.

Mask or no mask, Kylo doesn’t feel like a king. He’s a fighter both by training and by preference. Tactics, not strategy. Action, not discussion. Every instinct in him wants to solve his problems by grabbing his sword and shedding some blood. But those easy days are behind him now. Snoke is no longer alive to handle the big picture thinking. Vader is no longer a role model, having lived and died on a leash without ever holding the kind of power Kylo holds now. Dimly he remembers lessons from childhood, hours spent watching his mother’s career unfold on screen while his minders ignored him. He can’t look up to her, either. His politics are self-taught and he’s studying so hard his mind could burst.

Parnadee is one of the more garrulous members of his newly appointed Supreme Council. She’s part of the batch Kylo pulled from Snoke’s reserve forces, hungry to prove herself and grateful his ascension has given her the chance. As transparent as her pandering is, he can’t pretend it isn’t nice to hear _someone_ praise at least one aspect of his performance. He’s working harder than he’s worked in his life, and it feels like it’s yielding fewer results.

But power isn’t supposed to be easy. Everyone would have it if it were. His goal – to install a regime of perfect law and order from the Core right to the Outer Rim – is bigger than anything even the Empire dared reach for. He’s figuring it out as he goes.

‘The cloak adds to the effect,’ says Parnadee, right before Kylo shuts the ‘fresher door with her mercifully on the other side of it.

* * *

‘You look tired,’ he tells Rey one evening when the Force not-so-unexpectedly connects them. He’s been plucking at the bond all day, in moments between meetings (or when the meetings got too boring to listen to), tugging it like a frayed sleeve cuff and waiting for the thread to come free. He’d have preferred it to happen while he stood proud at the helm of his new flagship _Steadfast._ Of course she’s held out until he’s on his way to bed, barefoot, dressed in a night robe with five o’clock shadow bristling on his cheeks. ‘Are you not enjoying life on the run?’

‘Better than the life you offered me,’ she snaps, quick enough to show he’s hit a nerve. Red indents ring her mouth and nose, suggesting a respirator only recently removed. Kylo reaches for his datapad and taps out a message to his head of intelligence: look into planets with non-breathable atmospheres.

Rey’s eyes narrow. ‘I hope I haven’t interrupted something important.’

‘Galactic conquest. Don’t worry, you couldn’t interrupt it if you wanted to.’

‘How long do you spend coming up with your quips? You’re wasting time, you know. No one thinks you’re funny.’

‘My friends think I’m very funny.’

‘Don’t expect me to believe you have friends.’

She’s not wrong. Kylo prefers to limit his circle to a few trusted underlings – they offer all the benefits of friendship with none of the awkward downsides. Council members like Parnadee love telling him they admire his wit. More than once he has reduced his knights to howling mirth beneath their masks, though admittedly the jokes they like best are not ones Rey would appreciate.

‘I’m sure friends are a sensitive topic for you,’ he parries. ‘My comms staff picked up the broadcast you sent from Crait. _Your most desperate hour,_ you called it. A plea for help with your dear leader’s personal signature code, and no one cared enough to respond.’

‘Dear leader? Titles like that are more your style. We just call her Leia. But she might still let you call her _mum_ if you ask nicely.’

Sparring with her is a waste of his time. Kylo has had a long day and his pillow looks more appealing by the moment, but he can’t bear to let Rey think she’s won a point against him. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he says, taking a reckless lunge for the winning line. ‘But if you like parental names so much, you’re welcome to call me–’

It works. ‘You’re revolting,’ Rey snarls before he can even get the word out. ‘And not nearly as clever as you think you are.’ Then she’s gone, slamming the bond shut behind her like the moody teenage brat she is.

* * *

A series of rumoured sightings point to the Bryx sector and a cluster of sludgy industrial planets on the far rimward edge. That explains the respirators.

‘The Empire used to run a penal work camp on Wobani.’ General Engell speaks crisply, stiff-backed and immaculate in her Council seat, and Kylo likes the way she scans his face for signs of approval. ‘It suffered a high profile uprising shortly before the rebel attack on the Death Star. No doubt some of the locals still harbour subversive tendencies.’

‘And others harbour clear memories of the consequence of subversion,’ says General Quinn. He’s one of the old Imperial crew, pushy and proud, and Kylo likes him less. But his decades of experience make him worth keeping, at least for now. ‘If our rebel enemies look for support there, I doubt they’ll find much.’

‘Your recommendation?’ Kylo asks. ‘Engell,’ he clarifies, as Quinn opens his mouth.

‘Swift preventative action, sir. Wobani has no military to speak of, so we’ll have no trouble dousing any fire that breaks out. But…’ She’s choosing her words carefully. ‘The optics concern me. If possible, we should avoid any techniques that remind the galaxy of the last uprising. Far better if the former subversives are seen to welcome our occupation.’

With the sour taste of disappointed aggression in his mouth, Kylo approves a diplomatic envoy to Wobani. His planetary missiles will still be in reserve if negotiations don’t go his way. It’s possible the First Order’s mere presence will frighten the Resistance off whatever meagre ground they’ve gained in Bryx. And if it doesn’t … well. So far Kylo’s entire intelligence apparatus has failed to bring him much information about the rebels’ overall recovery strategy. There’s a sighting here, a skirmish there. Nothing of substance. 

Even at the height of its power, the Empire was never too proud to use subtler intelligence tactics. A soft touch on Wobani could encourage the locals to share openly what the Resistance wants from them.

Kylo is getting the hang of politics. His mother would be proud, if he cared. He doesn’t.

* * *

The Supreme Council prepares to advance peacefully on Wobani’s capital. Kylo throws himself into training, partly to burn off steam, partly in case the approach fails and he needs to decollate some recalcitrant heads.

This is one sphere of life where he knows beyond doubt he’s doing well. His body and spirit have finally healed from his wounds on Starkiller, and the Force roars through him like wildfire across sunbaked fields. His bladework is precise and brutal. He has mastered the weightless Force-aided flips and leaps that eluded him for so long under Snoke’s leaden tuition. Sometimes the inferno of his progress sparks spot fires in the bond, and he knows Rey is collecting embers as she trains in parallel.

It goes both ways. Sometimes he wakes from strange dreams to find his mind full of the techniques she is studying, scraps of Jedi lore he never sought to understand. But power is power. He absorbs it all as it comes, knowing the exchange bothers Rey far more than it bothers him.

He jerks off after training, full of endorphins and unspent frustration. He tries to train his mind on abstractly erotic thoughts: tits and ass and tight, slick cunt. It never works for long, because as soon as his focus slips, Rey’s image replaces his faceless fucktoy. He pictures her on his bed with legs and pussy lips spread wide. He pictures her on all fours, slim hips bruised with the indents of his fingers. He pictures her flushed and screaming his name. He pictures her on her knees, and when he comes he pictures it spattering her pretty face and dripping down her arrogant chin. He fucks her in front of all her friends and lets the whole Resistance see what their precious Jedi hero looks like split open on his cock. 

He fucks her in his mind and spills his release into his own hand, and he wonders, sometimes, if any of his fantasies leak through the bond along with fragments of his training. If she feels used or dirty when she sees her ravished doppelganger reflected in his mind. If a secret part of her thrills to the disgrace. If she touches herself thinking of the things he does to her body when she’s nothing but a figment and has no choice but to love it.

It begins and ends in those post-workout moments. The bond has been quiet since their last argument, never connecting them for long enough to talk. He hasn’t bothered reaching for it. He doesn’t imagine she has, either.

* * *

‘I’m going to visit Wobani myself,’ he tells his Council days later. A new field report arrived this morning enumerating every gain made so far in Bryx, which amounted to roughly three seconds of reading time. He’s seen this cycle too many times to count. He won’t make the same mistakes as the New Republic, so enamoured of peaceful solutions that they stagnated in endless negotiations. He won’t make the same mistakes as his mother, who helped disband her own military immediately after the Empire’s fall and then wasted the rest of her life on the Senate floor.

With the efficiency he once used to decimate enemy soldiers, Kylo whittles politics down to the bare essentials: make the offer nicely, and if they don’t respond nicely, stop being nice.

‘Supreme Leader,’ says Quinn, ‘I can’t recommend your intervention at this early stage. With our diplomatic ties so new and fragile, any perception of heavy-handedness could have catastrophic results. An envoy of your stature–’

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ says Parnadee, reliable as ever. ‘It will show Wobani’s leaders that our patience has its limits. We’ve invited them to join us at the table. Now it’s time for them to graciously accept.’

‘I don’t want our diplomacy to send the wrong message,’ Kylo tells his Council. ‘We’re trialing a new, more streamlined style of annexation on Wobani. But our targets can’t be allowed to believe the lack of force means compliance is optional.’

‘That’s not…’ Quinn swallows. ‘Supreme Leader, that’s not really how diplomacy…’

‘Ready an entourage and prepare my command shuttle. It’s time the galaxy comes to know the human face of our regime. Think of Wobani as a proving ground, General Quinn. If my diplomacy fails, our siege dreadnoughts will be ready to intervene. The message will be the same either way.’

* * *

The legacy of Imperial rule is etched clear on Wobani’s surface. Grid plan cities come into view as Kylo’s shuttle makes planetfall, stitched together by neat roads and power lines – a vast, rugged orb of rock tamed by infrastructure and human ambition. Abandoned penal colonies dot the frigid poles, while civilians cluster in the temperate equatorial regions, funded modestly but comfortably by the ores and oils that flow in from nearby mining planets. 

The Resistance is on one of those adjacent planets. Kylo can feel them, near but not near enough. Thick clouds of pollution thwart all attempts to scan the industrial settlements from orbit. It would feel so natural to go hunting through the miasma, armed and shrouded with all senses alive for the kill. Guided by the Force, he would track his enemies to their hiding place, tramp through the halls of their den until he finally found the corner where they cowered. He would cut them down without mercy.

In doing so, in ending a handful of tiny lives, he’d pass the hidden roots of their power to successors he doesn’t know. Snoke’s apprentice would terminate the immediate threat. The Supreme Leader of the First Order will do better: he’ll spare their lives, but crush their spirits.

The President of the Independent Wobani System receives Kylo with panicked surprise but no tangible air of deceit. Whatever contact she has had with the Resistance, she sincerely believes herself innocent of wrong against him. Kylo has not forgotten how his mother works: she’ll be following her old Populist patterns, circumventing official channels, building her numbers by appealing to the masses over the legitimate government. It’s likely the president knows very little, if anything, about exactly what Leia is doing on her soil.

He hasn’t ruled out holding her responsible anyway. There’s a precedent he’d like to set, a public message he’s still developing: the Resistance is not just his enemy, but the enemy of all peace-loving worlds. That makes it everyone’s duty to contribute to the anti-terror effort. Complacency is its own form of defiance. Neutrality can and will be punished.

In the interests of diplomacy, he shares these thoughts in discussion with the president rather than sharing them by means of his siege fleet’s artillery.

‘Supreme Leader Ren,’ she says, eyes wide and wheedling. ‘Wobani is an unallied system with no standing army of its own. I assure you, we have no love for the Resistance terrorists, but we also have no resources to fight them.’

‘How fortunate I came, then,’ he says. ‘I can supply troops to ensure no terror cells gain purchase on your territory. Consider yourself an unallied system no longer. I trust we can both benefit from cooperation.’

The negotiation is a farce, of course. The irony is that Kylo follows the exact script his negotiators used only days ago, with the same demands for taxes and manpower and shared intelligence, and in exchange the same offers of protection and economic advantage. The only thing different about this negotiation is that he’s the one conducting it. Power unlocks every door. That’s what the New Republic’s career diplomats never understood, and why they were helpless to stop the galaxy falling to disarray before the First Order stepped in to reestablish the rule of law.

It is, as Quinn says, heavy-handed, him showing up in person on a backwater planet whose capitulation offers the First Order no strategic benefit. If it weren’t for the Resistance, this place would be irrelevant.

That’s the beauty of it: by coming here himself Kylo risks nothing, and gains everything. The president publicises their new alliance. The galaxy learns that no system, however small or unobtrusive, lies outside the First Order’s reach. And the Resistance learns that no move of theirs is subtle enough to escape his notice. For them, there’s no such thing as easy pickings. He’ll annex every world they even think of trying to lay claim to.

Kylo looks forward to seeing the distaste on Quinn’s face as he eats his words. A part of him wishes he could also see his mother receive the news. The rest of him is glad he can’t.

* * *

Rey’s eyes are bloodshot next time the bond connects them. He’s back on the _Steadfast,_ alone in his chambers. Sleeplessness hangs in dark bags beneath her eyes and her skin has a sallow tinge. ‘You look like you need some fresh air,’ he tells her. ‘You should consider moving off Gado.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Not Gado, then? Maybe Vel, or Hastal. I know you’re on one of the planets around Wobani.’

She scowls. ‘This won’t work, you know. Intimidation tactics. The Resistance isn’t afraid of you. _I’m_ not afraid of you.’

‘Maybe not, but you’re in the minority. Tell me, how willing are your Wobani friends to help you now that the president has publicly sided with me?’

Rey doesn’t answer. No banter, no barb. That’s how he knows for sure his work on Wobani has hit her where it really hurts.

He steps forward, studying her eyes and reaching past the veil of her mind. He sees hours, days, weeks of painstaking work to carve out a hiding place in the Bryx sector, pleading with would-be allies under Leia’s direcion. A handful of credits. A few sympathetic locals. Desperate barter, humbling appeals for compassion. Briefly, Kylo feels a pang of – not regret. Not for what he’s done. Regret for how things could have been, maybe. Rey is younger than him, and even newer to galactic-scale politics. The two of them could have walked this path together, learning from each other in the symbiotic way their bond makes so easy. Instead she’s playing against him. And she’s losing.

‘You’re losing because you’re wrong,’ he says, echoing the thought aloud. ‘Surely you know that deep down. Look at your role model – look at Leia Organa’s track record in the political sphere. A failed career after a whole life sacrificed in pursuit of a few brief moments of triumph. Diplomacy can’t hold the galaxy in check for long. It’s too large. Too disorganised. It needs stronger leadership, and the Wobani were wise enough to know that. All the other independent systems you might go to next for aid, they’ll know it too. It’s only a matter of time before they capitulate to First Order rule, and when they do, they’ll be better off for it.’

‘You don’t give a damn if they’re better off or not. The Wobani capitulated because they knew you’d nuke them from orbit if they didn’t.’

‘Ways and means, Rey.’

‘You already know what I think of that.’

He does. And yet she holds his gaze, doesn’t look away, doesn’t move back when he steps towards her. He’s close enough to see each crease in the plump lips he’s so often pictured around his cock. Rey’s young and stubborn, but she can’t be so naive that she doesn’t know the way he thinks of her – the fantasies he’s cherished since he captured her on Takodana and felt the limp weight of her body in his arms. His success in recent negotiations has shifted something in his mind. It’s only now occurring to him that his and Rey’s personal relationship is a fair analogue for their tug-of-war over Wobani. His firm hand has won out over whatever desperate pleas for help she pitched to the locals. 

He tried pleading with Rey once, and she turned on him as surely as the Wobani have turned on her now. He can learn from this. Avoid repeating old mistakes. Power unlocks every door. Nobody ever complies unless you make them.

He steps in closer. Tired, resigned, blazing with confused emotion, Rey doesn’t pull away.

‘I know exactly what you think,’ he says, and cups her chin, feels silk skin, sees the wide eyes of a fathier in headlights. If Kylo can master the complex world of galactic politics, there’s no reason he can’t master her. 

He knows, with intuitive Force-bond certainty, she’s never done anything like this before. Never been touched or kissed or fucked. ‘You’re frightened. Overwhelmed. You started a war you don’t know how to finish, and you’re afraid the effort will drain everything you have.’ He traces his hand lower, down her neck, over her breasts. It’s working. Like his new Wobani subjects, she’ll let him take what he wants if he does it with confidence.

‘You’re projecting,’ Rey says, coldly defiant – but not her body. Her body burns hot beneath his touch. ‘You’re the one who’s afraid. You see my mind? I see yours too. You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re just making it up as you go along.’

Anger flares, and he kisses her to shut her up. Her mouth has a softness that could melt – no. He’s not here to revel in intimacy. Not here to melt into her, not here for the unbidden emotions roaring to life in his chest. He’s here to take.

He grips her by the hair and rips her tunic open. She’s letting him, still letting him. Was this all it ever took? Her breasts are a perfect handful, and her thighs wrap strong around his hips as he lifts her. He cups her ass, kneads firm muscle, bites her lip until she whimpers. He carries her to his bed – where she lands on her end of the bond, he neither knows nor cares. Maybe she’s alone in her quarters too. Maybe she’s in a shared space, laid bare to any of her friends who happen to pass by and see her spreading her legs for him. Flushed with thoughts of her exposure, he tugs her leggings down.

Her cunt is a dark fuzzy slit between her legs, not shaven and plump like the holoporn that inspired his fantasy version of her. Reality is better. She has a sharp, tangy scent, and when he touches her, his finger slips easily between slick labia to find the place where she’s already wet for him. It’s hard to believe this is actually happening. He’s wanted her for so long. His heart pounds a frantic drumbeat in his chest, and with a press of his finger, he touches her inside and feels her cunt tighten around his knuckle.

There’s so much to explore. Kylo wants to plumb her to the very depths and catalogue every last fold of tender flesh. He wants to touch her in ways no other man has touched her. He wants to make every part of her his own. He wants to lick her, taste her, memorise her, but his cock is throbbing in his pants and most of all he wants to fuck her. His fly is stiff, fingers unwieldy. Rey unfastens it for him. With fiery eyes she spits on his cock and says, ‘Do it already,’ and that’s it, that’s her foreplay.

It’s all he needs.

Her cunt is blissfully wet and elastic, yielding till he’s buried to the hilt. His first few thrusts make her eyes look ready to pop from her skull, and her mouth falls wide open in a way he tells himself looks stupid. Another hole he might use later if he wants to. He fucks her hard, kneeling above her on the bed with her legs hooked over his shoulders. He loves the way her cunt feels but he hates the way she watches him.

So he flips her over. She’s even better on all fours, tighter, easier to access. Her moans sound like pain but she doesn’t fight, doesn’t tell him to stop or even slow down. Her pussy stretches wide for his cock, lips lapping the shaft, taking all of him inside her deceptively small body. The tight, dark pucker of her asshole peeks from beneath two fleshy cheeks, and he knows he’s looking at something even more untouched than the rest of her. She’s never shown that part of her to anyone. Never tested it herself, not even with a finger.

Kylo feels drunk. He licks his thumb and presses it to the rim of her asshole, feels her clench up in shock – but she doesn’t tell him to stop, so he pushes in and feels her impossibly tight walls squeeze like a trap. He’s fucking her cunt and fingering her ass and he’s claimed all of her, now, there are no secret nooks of her body stashed away from him, no buried troves of dignity he can’t take from her with his –

Oh.

Oh, he’s done.

He’s done, he’s coming, pulsing inside her, filling her cunt up with his pleasure. She’s shaking. Moaning into the bed. When he pulls out, the moans start to sound like sobs.

It’s like a hormonal storm has passed, like the deluge has washed Kylo’s mind clean and left it empty, smelling faintly of rain. He stares at Rey ass-up on his bed. It’s hard to tell who he’s looking at, suddenly. She’s the human embodiment of all his fantasies, the passive toy he invented in his mind, the set of willing holes for him to fuck. She’s the bright-eyed girl he once considered giving up his empire for. She’s the powerful young woman his mother has pinned with the hopes of a new Jedi generation. She’s one half of a soul cleaved in two by the Force, connected to him by spindly threads that refuse to break despite the best of both their efforts.

He thought he could kill the latter three and leave only the first alive. He thought somehow it would make things easier.

He wanted to claim her, own her, expose her. Instead, in his moment of post-orgasmic clarity, Kylo fears he has only exposed himself.

Rey rolls over on her side. She’s a strange colour, red-cheeked but white-faced, cum leaking down her thighs in sticky dollops. ‘That was my first time,’ she says, not looking at him. ‘You couldn’t even make it good for me, could you? Of course you couldn’t. You’re as selfish in bed as you are on the throne. You think you can bully your way to the top, but it won’t work.’ Now she looks at him. ‘You can’t own things by breaking them, Ben. They just end up broken. One day you’re going to realise that when there’s nothing left to break.’

The bond fades out. She’s gone, leaving nothing but a damp spot on his bed that reeks of her unmet needs and his hollow release.

* * *

Hastal. The Resistance is on Hastal. Kylo wakes up with the knowledge clear in his mind, the word echoing silently in the Force. 

Moments later, before he can act on the knowledge, his com trills with a notification that anti-regime riots have broken out on Wobani.

Kylo hurries to the hangar, past ground troops preparing to deploy to the riot zone, and preps his personal ship for launch with the barest minimum of pre-flight checks. Enraged and confused by the sudden turn of fortune, it’s not until he’s ready to land on Hastal’s grimy surface that he realises he doesn’t have a plan.

Old habits. It feels so good to forget about politics and just act.

The bunker the Resistance was using for a base stands empty now, thick with fumes from the small fleet that must only recently have left. In the middle of the floor, on the other side of the engine haze from Kylo's landed craft, the familiar figures of two women wait to meet him.

‘I told you he’d come alone,’ says Rey.

‘I never doubted you,’ says Kylo’s mother.

Rage floods Kylo at the arrogant, self-assured tone of that voice. As if she knows the first thing about him any more, about the man he’s become, the ways he’s surpassed her. It must have been one of their voices he heard on waking. They must have wanted him to learn their location. _I fucked your little Jedi last night,_ he wants to scream at Leia, irrationally. _She thinks I’m coming back for more. I’ve already taken everything I want._ But Rey just stands there, unashamed and impassive, like she hasn’t had him balls deep inside her virgin cunt. Leia just stands there, like she knows but doesn’t care. Like it has nothing to do with anything else that’s happening.

‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Ben.’ If Kylo were any less furious, he might respect the way Leia holds her voice steady when her aura in the Force is so transparently full of trembling emotion. She’s always put her political image ahead of her feelings. He resented it bitterly as a child. As an adult and a leader himself, he now knows the high price she pays for her mastery. ‘I couldn’t leave in good conscience without assuring you the Wobani president played no part in sparking the riots. I’ve been trying to reach her for weeks, but she’s too frightened of you to even consider compromising her loyalty. Please bear that in mind as you plan your retaliation.’

Indirect words. Quinn and his diplomats would be proud. What Leia really means is that she instigated the riots herself to undermine his progress with the president, and now she thinks she can dictate where the fallout lands. She knew before she ever acted that Kylo would have no choice but to retaliate. He was poised to achieve the rule of law on Wobani, and instead she has whipped the populace into a frenzy against him and in doing so consigned them to death. Pointless destruction. Collateral damage in the war she refuses to stop waging.

But really, Kylo has no one to blame but himself. He should never have listened to his Council. Diplomacy is a waste of time with agents of chaos like his mother on the loose. If he’d started with an invasion force, as he should have done, no one would have had a chance to riot.

‘She failed to turn you over,’ he tells Leia. ‘She’ll be held accountable for that. As will every other living soul who turns a blind eye to your sedition.’ He turns to Rey. ‘Play close attention to where you’ve put your loyalties. I did everything in my power to achieve a peaceful resolution on Wobani. You champions of light are the ones who chose violence, and you chose it knowing you couldn’t protect the rioters who rose up on your orders. Their blood is on your hands. Consider that next time you accuse me of selfishness.’

Rey’s lip curls in disgust. ‘Whatever you do to the rioters is your own choice. Don’t you dare try to turn it around on us.’

‘Leave it, Rey,’ says Leia. ‘Ben–’ She looks at him wordlessly. Shakes her head. Her eyes look sad, and Kylo fears he may spontaneously combust from how much that sadness makes him hate her. ‘I’ve done my duty. The Wobani have reclaimed their rebel past and sent a powerful message to the galaxy that your tyranny is not to be endured. My people evacuated hours ago. Rey and I are going now, too. You can try to stop us if you want, but bear in mind I had ample time to prepare an escape before calling you here.’

He doesn’t try to stop them. It’s not worth his time – he has work to do on Wobani. An example to make. A precedent to set. A lesson to internalise about the futility of peaceful strategies. In a way, he’s almost grateful. This experience has freed him from the exhausting burden of diplomacy. 

When he contacts the Council with new orders for a military crackdown across the whole Bryx sector, Kylo is finally out of the deep end and back on solid ground.

* * *

He dreams of making it up to Rey. Dreams of kneeling between her legs, licking her tenderly, lavishing the soft parts of her in all the adoring attention she’s never had. He makes her come. Makes her smile. She combs her fingers through his hair and says, ‘Ben. It doesn’t have to be like this. Wouldn’t you rather stop fighting?’

He’s blind with rage when he wakes. He smashes his room to shards. Smashes his bedpost, his dresser, his datapad. Breaks it all until there’s nothing left to break, and then sits in the rubble and watches blood drip from knuckles he didn’t feel split.

Dream-Rey is wrong – it does have to be like this. Her waking self has shown him that.


End file.
